Final Touches Range From Flowery to Frantic as Expanded Pre-K Awaits Start

The sounds of scissors slicing through construction paper and transparent tape being torn from rolls filled every room at the Kaleidoscope Early Childhood Development Center in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, on Wednesday. After weeks of hiring teachers, filling seats and ordering furniture, the Kaleidoscope staff was putting the finishing decorative touches on its classrooms, readying for the first day of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiative: a vast expansion of full-day prekindergarten.

Mr. de Blasio built his campaign largely around the promise of offering free pre-k for every 4-year-old, and his administration has invested mightily in quickly bringing that plan to life, more than doubling the city’s capacity to over 53,000 seats for the 2014-15 school year.

But for all the preparations of the mayor’s office and a host of city agencies, it will be thousands of tiny feet that snap the program into reality on Thursday, offering its first day of true testing.

Ms. Grebenyuk, who has offered private pre-k for several years, was approved to participate in the city program only last month. She spent four frantic weeks filling her roster of teachers and students. She hired her final teacher on Friday and filled the last seat in her three pre-k classrooms Wednesday morning.

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Across New York City, teachers and parents scrambled to be ready for the start of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s expanded prekindergarten program on the first day of the new school year.CreditCreditAndrew Renneisen/The New York Times

Shon Urbas’s daughter secured one of the 43 spots at Kaleidoscope three weeks ago, after being put on waiting lists at nearly a dozen programs.

“The process to get into pre-k was just crazy,” Mr. Urbas said. “It’s a big relief.”

Michael Pau said his son Nathaniel had been on waiting lists at three public schools and two community programs over the summer. Last week, Mr. Pau panicked when he realized Nathaniel might not make it off a waiting list, and he took half a day off work on Tuesday to look at other options. While he described himself as a big supporter of the prekindergarten expansion, he said the process was stressful.

“We spent months researching all the public schools,” he said. “Now I am doing a one-day, two-day time frame” to research alternatives.

“And as a parent we always worry: Did we make the right decision?” he added.

Just one day before the beginning of school, Mr. Pau chose the Divine Wisdom Catholic Academy in Bayside, Queens.

The city announced on Tuesday that nine programs that were to offer city-financed prekindergarten spots would not open because of safety concerns and other issues, and that 36 programs would open late, displacing hundreds of children at the very last moment.

On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio said that 125 of the 265 children displaced by the closings had been “successfully placed in alternative sites.”

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Books in the reading area at the Kaleidoscope pre-k program in Brooklyn. Kaleidoscope was approved to participate in the city program only last month.CreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times

“Let me emphasize to all the parents who are concerned: Every child will get a seat,” Mr. de Blasio said. “That is guaranteed. They will be offered a seat as close as possible.”

“This is a human endeavor,” he said.

If stories of confusion and delays have blemished the pre-k program’s introduction, the scene at several sites that were ready to go were ones of calm and methodical preparation on Wednesday.

At Bethel Mission Loving Day Care Center in Arverne, Queens, a colorful sign declaring “Welcome to the UPK Class!” greets the students for Thursday. The bright classroom was filled with a miniature wood shop, a terrarium and a small playground out back. The cubbies showed that out of the 18 seats in the class, 17 had already been labeled, while the second class was still finalizing enrollment. The program director, Dolores Paual, expected to fill every seat.

At Rego Park Day School in Queens, Barbara Benisatto and Jacqueline Bruno stood in a well-lit room with colorful window frames, tidying up their classroom with rubber gloves.

“We just have to pull it all together,” Ms. Benisatto said, as she adjusted a pile of wooden puzzles.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Final Touches Range From Flowery to Frantic as Expanded Pre-K Awaits Start. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe